#saietta

Couple of me on the Saietta/Agni electric bike at the weekend. Thanks to JTW Photgraphy for letting me use them. Go check out her website. 

http://jtwmotorsportphotography.zenfolio.com or find her on FB @jtwphotographyuk I’m sure she’d appreciate a share or comment. 

Link to the words about riding it to answer the @homopetroleum

Not put fingers to keys for a while now so this is the first written piece I’ll post up. It’ll shortly be followed by an early review of my race season.

This post is very specific even though it is based on racing. I have been working hard all season to win a club championship so attending Club meetings as well as National meetings has been the norm. The weekend just gone was no different and I travelled to Wales and Pembrey circuit to continue my campaign. Realistically I lost the championship earlier in the year when I had two non points scoring races at Donington Park due to crashing but I’m the kind of person who doesn’t give in easily and know from experience that anything can happen.

Well, something different certainly happened at Pembrey and it didn’t involve my main championship. Essentially I was stood in the right place at the right time and managed to get a ride on an electric race bike.

The MotoE championship is a European race series that is all about emerging technology being put through it’s paces in the rigorous environment that is competitive motorsport.

The series is open to anyone with an electric bike, although my knowledge isn’t that great on the specific rules. Currently there are a few University based teams, a Chinese (Zongshen) team with three bikes and a company called Saietta/Agni with a single machine. That single machine was the one I got to ride.

The bike is a Suzuki GSXR 750 chassis, K7/8 vintage judging by cosmetics but I can’t be sure. It has been modified to house batteries, electric motors and a control unit. I don’t know the exact specification but for the most part it looks like a regular race bike apart from a modified cover where the fuel tank would be to cover the controller. It also has two electric motors sticking out of the side where the engine cases would be. It does weigh significantly more than a standard petrol engined machine but the Ohlins suspension has been set up to deal with that.

My first session on it was a practice session so no real pressure. The bike had just been fitted with new Brembo pads and the rear Metzeler was a little worn but I wasn’t overly fussed. I needed to just experience riding it in the practice session. I was briefed by the company “Chief Scientist” on using the controls. I was blissfully unaware that the man in the awning with no shoes, working on the brakes, was the one and only Cedric Lynch. He is the inventor of the ground breaking motors that power a lot of the machines being raced to this day. I spent quite a lot of the weekend with him and the bike and to say he knows his shit is an understatement. I was fascinated in everything he had to say. From the inner workings of the automatic adjustment system on the old Eastern Bloc Trabant brake calipers to the difficulties of trying to produce a tyre that grips more after it slides rather than before. I couldn’t get my head around that last one either.

Anyway, he showed me the start procedure. He informed me of what was on the display in front of me, primarily motor temperature gauges and power remaining in the batteries, then set me free. The bike is set up as a conventional machine so throttle and front brake on the right and a rear brake under my right foot. There is no clutch lever and the only control on the left is a horn button. Apparently it is a requirement that a rider gives the marshals a toot to acknowledge any flag signals as the lack of engine noise offers no feedback to the officials that the rider has seen the flag. It’s a GSXR twist and go to put it bluntly. It just happens to do 110mph+

I’d already been out on my 899 Panigale and made a racket prior to practice. I was also a bit sweaty so when I rolled down pit lane in total silence the first thing I noticed apart from the distinct lack of noise was the cooling breeze. It was literally a refreshing experience. It was a mixed practice session so there were conventional machines out circulating but I got going and bedded the brake pads in.

The bike does make a certain amount of noise. The motors give a gentle whine and the drive train whistles a little. Application of the brakes yields a satisfying whizz as the pads bite into the disks. I was a little sceptical about how the bike would handle considering it weighed at least 40kg more than a normal machine. I needn’t have worried. The weight was noticeable when pushing it around the paddock but once underway it handled as well as any bike I’ve ever ridden. It was stable under brakes, turned in and made the apex every time I asked and would lean as far as I dared. The first time my R&G knee slider touched the ground I had flashbacks of sliding up the road on my arse next to a rapidly self destructing bike. You don’t normally hear the scrape of plastic on tarmac over engine noise and it normally wouldn’t fill me with confidence. On this occasion, after the initial touch, it turned out to be very satisfying. I found myself doing it so that people watching could hear it too.

I rode a classic bike for a client a few months back after photographing it for him and I had the same feeling on Saturday after riding the Saietta/Agni bike. That pleasantly surprised emotion accompanied by the manic laughter in my helmet as I rolled back into the paddock. My eyes had been firmly opened.

A quick de-brief with Cedric established that I had been riding it very efficiently and it was clear to me that this was the only way to ride the thing. Corner speed, corner speed and more corner speed. This particular GSXR is heavy, old and compared to other bikes in the paddock it’s slow. It’s entitled to be that way though as this was the original TT Zero winning bike from 2009. As with anything, technology moves at an incredible pace and money clearly plays a part. The two bikes in the Nottingham University camp looked like full on Superbikes. Daley Matthieson rides one, his £9k Bitubo forks suffered a failure on Sunday. Superbike forks in an electric bike?, gives you some idea of what is going into them. He also broke the lap record on it, a 1:04, I was only doing 1:01s on my 899.

For afternoon qualifying we changed the rear tyre for a very lightly scrubbed Pirelli slick to match the front. Other than that nothing changed. Cedric got the batteries on charge with an inline household light bulb to regulate the voltage for a clean charge. I was learning a lot just by being around him and the bike.

Qualifying went well and I could feel myself getting more confident. The way the power is delivered is very linear, if somewhat lacking to start with. I found myself trying to work the throttle the way I do on the 899 to prevent the rear stepping out of line. There was no need for that on the electric bike. I very much doubt the rear would ever misbehave due to a heavy throttle hand. Eventually it started to click and coming off the brakes early and letting the bike run around the corners was key. The less work the motors had to do to get going again the better. It was almost a punishment for not having the balls to run the corner speed. If I scrubbed off too much it seemed to take an age to get going, especially at the two Pembrey hairpins. I’m a quick learner and because of the lack of engine noise the voices in my head seemed that little bit louder, get off the brakes dickhead, apex and GO GO GO.

I qualified 5th………….out of 5 finishers. The Chinese bikes seemed a little bit unreliable but mine just kept going. Every time I came around turn one there seemed to be one of them just stopped on the track, performing a reset by all accounts.

After day one on the electric bike I was happy to race it. There were two races on Sunday. A sprint race and an endurance event. In essence a 7 lap dash early on and a longer race where potentially strategy would come in.

Sitting on the grid in the early morning sun in total silence was a bit odd. I hadn’t ridden the 899 as the MotoE race was the first race of the day. At least the Church goers couldn’t complain. Starters flag up…………silence, Lights to red…………..silence, Lights out and away we went. It was instantly clear that the bike under me was slower off the line. I got left standing but kept it pinned as long as I dared into turn one. The thrill of having other bikes around you in pretty much total silence was memorable. Having no engine to manage, no clutch, no craziness going on under you when the back wheel locks up on down changes all contributed to me being able to really focus on my racing. I started thinking about my body position and concentrating on putting the bike exactly where it needed to be. Slipstreaming came into play, getting a draft made all the difference in getting the bike up to speed as quickly as possible. I felt the rolling radius of the back wheel change the acceleration characteristics at the fast kink. The bike refused to accelerate any further whilst leant over but once upright it pulled keenly again. As the race progressed I found myself shutting the throttle less and less and the gap to the bike in front started to come down. Unfortunately I ran out of laps and finished 4th out of seven starters. My lap times were consistently 1:13 and all within .5 of a second.

The second race was longer and because of the nature of the race program I was out immediately prior to the MotoE race in the Open class on the 899. I think this helped to be fair. A dozen laps at race pace on the noisy bike fired me up for a nice gentle race on the electric machine. I got a better start this time and managed to get in front of Josh Day on one of the Chinese machines. He immediately came back at me around the first left hander but it was clear his bike wasn’t as quick in this race on the straights, perhaps someone forgot to plug it in. Or maybe I was nailing the corners a bit better. Difficult to tell. It didn’t matter, I was on it and managed to hold onto 2nd place from lap two until lap ten. The Chinese rider Chun Kay Kwok tried to out brake me into turn one a couple of times but kept running on. We then had a full on battle for 3 or 4 laps with me passing him twice in one lap. I was trying everything to get away from him. 

Back in 2000 I was at a trackday at Kirkistown in Northern Ireland and I saw the legendary Joey Dunlop riding a 125. He was putting his left arm behind his back on the straights to get a few more MPH out of the little bike. I never forgot that and knew it would come in useful one day. The Chinese rider saw me doing it so he started doing it and in the end I think he just drafted me until the final corner. He passed me over the line, winning by just .03 of a second. A good race and glad I could put it on the podium for the team. Not bad for a first ride on an electric bike. My lap times reflected my progress too, pretty consistent 1:11s and a couple of 1:12s

I can honestly say that racing a machine like that and seeing the passion in the people building them has sparked my interest (no pun intended). It’s not something I had considered before, even though I see the TT Zero every year. With engineering and materials progressing I can’t see any reason why there shouldn’t be a full grid in the near future. It has also opened my eyes to the possibility of owning an electric machine for my Sunday blast. Although I might have to get a heavy duty clothes peg and a pack of playing cards for the spokes…..I do still love the sound of an engine.

Thanks to everyone involved for allowing me to ride it. 

Saietta Agni Electric bike, Pembrey 2016.